Colonial Pinnacle Nord du Lac Shopping Center, Colonial Pinnacle invites its neighbors to “Come Grow with Us” and welcome the new retailers and restaurants to the Covington area. Retailers and restaurants opening their doors for the October event include national and local brands. Academy Sports + Outdoors Hobby Lobby, Kohl’s, Kirkland’s, Dollar Tree, Purse Bag Patties, The Shoe Boutique and Texas Roadhouse are all set to open by October 16, 2010. Ribbon cutting will be Saturday Oct. 16 at 9:45 am. Colonial Pinnacle Shopping Center, Interstate 12 and Highway 21

Delta Conference

The Inaugural World Delta Dialogues – DELTAS2010 – a major international conference of more than 350 representatives from at least 15 countries that will tackle the challenges and opportunities associated with sustaining deltaic regions worldwide, using the Mississippi River Delta as the focus will take place October 17-21, 2010 at the The Ritz-Carlton New Orleans.

The event is organized by America’s Wetland Foundation, Royal Netherlands Embassy, The Nature Conservancy, and the Greater New Orleans Foundation.

Delegations from deltas in crisis, including the Rhine in the Netherlands, the Ganges in India, the Yangtze and Yellow in China, the Nile in Egypt, the Danube in Romania and the Mekong in Vietnam.

The Department of the Interior, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and the co-trustees for natural resources affected by the BP/Deepwater Horizon oil spill announced today they have started the injury assessment and restoration planning phase of the Natural Resource Damage Assessment, a legal process to determine the type and amount of restoration needed to compensate the public for harm to natural resources and their human uses as a result of the spill.

This is the second phase of the NRDA process. Much of the initial “preassessment” phase has already occurred—and trustees have already received $45 million in payments from responsible parties to conduct important preassessment activities including the collection of time-critical data in the field.

The second phase of NRDA began with a Notice of Intent to Conduct Restoration Planning indicates that the trustees, representing three federal Departments and the five affected states, have begun to formally identify and document impacts to the gulf’s natural resources, and the public’s loss of use and enjoyment of these resources, as the first stage under the regulations for developing a restoration strategy. Pre-assessment data collected, analyzed and quality-checked, are available to the public on the NOAA oil spill science missions and data website and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service oil spill response website.

Rusovich Honored

Gregory Rusovich has been named the Maritime Person of the Year by the New Orleans Petroleum Club. On Thursday October 14, Rusovich will be honored at the 2010 Maritime Day Gala. Rusovich is CEO of Transoceanic Trading and Development.

Shreveport Festival

The 35th Red River Revel Arts Festival will take place Saturday, Oct. 2 – Saturday, Oct. 9. This eight day festival is held at Festival Plaza in downtown Shreveport, and promises to deliver big on food, art, music, fun, and entertainment.

White House Chat

Today at 2 PM EDT, the White House hosted a special live chat with Marie Johns, Deputy Administrator of the U.S. Small Business Administration, moderated by OPEN Forum's Scott Roen. Deputy Administrator Johns will answer small business owners' questions about The Small Business Jobs Act and opportunities for small businesses as part of the Recovery Act and Affordable Care Act.

Motorists along the Interstate-10 Expressway have watched it rise and take form on the Xavier University of Louisiana campus for the past two years, and now it stands as a visual symbol of its recovery from the devastation of Hurricane Katrina.